Beyond the Stars
by Phoenix Oblivion
Summary: A lost kittypet with no where to go. A warrior exiled from his clan for a crime he didn't commit. A loner with no one left to care for. All three of them are destined for greatness- and though each cat is different in every way, they are all looking for the same thing… a home.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: Hi guys! Just to clarify, this is a story idea I've had for literally years. It's just not been written until now, so I decided that I would have a go at it and post it on fanfiction.**

**Summary:**

**A lost kittypet with no where to go. A warrior exiled from his clan for a crime he didn't commit. A loner with no one left to care for. All three of them are destined for greatness- and though each cat is different in every way, they are all looking for the same thing… a home.**

**End of Summary:**

**The prologue maybe a bit boring, but you have to understand it's important. The information learnt here is going to be pretty important in later chapters *evil laugh*. Oh yes! If any of you guys like The Hunger Games, I'd really appreciate it if you guys read my other crossover fanfiction between Warriors and The Hunger Games.**

**But most of all, please RR!**

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**Prologue:**

Silence. Utter silence. Nothing penetrated the lingering quiet in the forest. All the birds were roosting in the trees: all the prey safe and warm in their burrows. Only the light of the moon illuminated the grass and dense undergrowth of ThunderClan territory. It would seem that the whole place was completely deserted… and on any other night it would stay this way. But something had happened in the hours of light- a deed that could never be forgiven.

Suddenly, a loud crescendo of shrieks cracked the air. It would have awakened the cats of RiverClan on the other side of the lake! It was the kind of noise that set your teeth on edge. The noise of furious cats.

But an even louder one echoed over all the rest. Even from a distance, you could make out the voice. It was that of a tom. 'Sagewhisker! I hereby sentence you to exile! Never shall you set foot in the territory of the clans ever again; if you do, my warriors are permitted to kill you for your crime.'

Another chorus of yowls, except this time each one was filled with satisfaction and blood-lust. This was swiftly followed by the rustling of bushes, and like a blur, a tom-cat shot out from seemingly nowhere. His paws carried him faster from the wind. But that wasn't the only sound an animal with sensitive hearing would have been able to detect. Sagewhisker of ThunderClan was whimpering.

_StarClan! _He shouted in his head. _What have I done to deserve this? What made you burden me with this punishment? I am innocent! __Only a day ago, life had been normal- and just as calm. What happened?_

Sagewhisker felt his mind flying back into the past. He remembered waking up on a morning where sunlight streamed into the den: everyone in his clan had been sharing tongues; eating prey and enjoying Green-Leaf. Their leader, Stonestar, (who at this time would usually assign the hunting patrols) had supposedly not yet woken up. A lot of the cats were becoming slightly uneasy at his absence, so Sagewhisker, deciding to break the tension, had gone up to his leader's den to see what the problem was. Up there, he had discovered the cat he had respected and admired his whole life engulfed in his own blood, coughing and spitting for breath. Stonestar's whole throat had been separated from his neck.

The whole floor of the den had been covered by scarlet liquid, as if red feathers were littered across the ground. It had been a gruesome sight; Sagewhisker had found himself immobilised and frightened, unable to move. He felt like he was rooted to the spot. Something prevented him from using his limbs.

So when the clan deputy had come to see where he had got to, it must have seemed pretty obvious that he had murdered his clan leader. With his paws and claws dripping with blood… well, what else could she have believed?

And so here Sagewhisker was, banished from everything and everyone he had ever known, with nowhere to go and no one to go to. _I've never stepped out of the boundary of the clans territory around the lake! _He thought miserably. _Where the hell am I meant go?_

One thing was certain: he couldn't return to the clans. He couldn't. They would kill him. The cats he had always believed to be friends would slaughter him- and they wouldn't lose sleep over it. Far from it. They would probably enjoy it.

Sagewhisker's paws felt numb. He found himself sinking to the ground in despair. _Why should I leave here? Why don't just lie here and wait for them to find me._

_No no no! _He shouted defiantly in his head. _You can't give up! Don't let ThunderClan take your life for something you never did. Stonestar's death was not your fault, and besides… being exiled isn't the end of the world. Maybe out there, in the wilderness, you'll find something better than what you had in ThunderClan. You can be great, Sagewhisker… _

_I know I can!_

With new found confidence, the tom got to his paws and ran forward with a haste he never believed he had. Time flew like blur for the tom-cat as he dashed through the trees of what he had previously called home. At midnight, he was out in the open of WindClan's territory. As the sun began to break the sky, and dawn arrived, he was at the very edge of clan territory. He was on top of the lake: he was on top of the world. Suddenly, he found that all his hope might not have been drained out of him by his exile. Out there, across the horizon beyond the imagination of any clan cat before him, beyond the reaches of their ancestral home around Fourtrees, there _would _be a new place for him.

Sagewhisker smiled for the first time in what felt like years; he began to move once more.

It didn't matter where home was. All he had to do was find it.

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**So what did you think of the prologue? And, of course, Sagewhisker? Do you like him?**

**Leave you thoughts in a review!**


	2. Chapter 1: Holly

Author's** Note: Hello! This is the first chapter of Beyond the Stars! Just saying, I really suggest that you read the progue before just skipping straight to the story, because it contains quite a bit of important information about Sagewhisker, one of the main ****protagonist's, past.**

**Anyway, I hope that enjoy this chapter! In the prologue we introduced Sagewhisker, and in this chapter we're going to have a brand new character. Hope you like her, and as usual, read and review!**

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**Chapter One:**

**Alone**

**Holly's POV**

_Holly was dreaming._**  
**

_She dreamt of savage teeth, snapping and biting at her. She dreamt of wails of loss and agony. Blood seeped onto the grass and onto her paws: she mewed pitifully and scrambled out of her mother's reach. Holly heard the immediate yowl of her mother as she called her back. She desperately extending her paws to try and grab her offspring, but the kit was blinded by fear; she ducked underneath a bush concealed by the thick trees, whimpering. She glanced back only once… to see her mother, who had only been calling to her a few seconds, lying on the floor completely still-_

She woke up, panting and gasping for breath. Her eyes were wide with horror. 'Mother!' She shrieked.

But there was no one there.

Still pulling in large gulps of air like her life depended on it, Holly settled back down in her nest, trying to calm herself down. _Be quiet, Holly, _she thought, _it was just a dream. No one died: it was just another nightmare. Just another nightmare..._

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When Holly woke up, sunlight was streaming into her den, lighting up the place majestically. She yawned and got to her paws; the birds were tweeting loudly outside and the scent of prey almost overwhelming as she padded outside into the forest. Dew dripped from the leaves and water droplets left over from the rainstorm that had taken place over night from the trees: the water had also created mud. Her paws squelched in it, splattering her silky black and white fur all over. But it didn't bother her. Holly was used to dirt.

Unable to ignore the rumbling in her belly any longer, the she-cat began to pad forward. Through experience, Holly knew that the water and mud would have washed out all of the prey scents and trails from the previous day; if game had padded past in the last couple of hours though, their paw prints would be displayed a lot clearer than they would have been in dry terrain. If she was lucky, she would come across an animal that had only started foraging for food a few minutes before her.

And to her satisfaction, Holly found that she was lucky. The strong aroma of fresh squirrel wafted from the ground, and, trying to keep the noise of her paws sinking into the mud as quiet as possible, she began to follow the trail.

It lead her through the dense undergrowth for what had been at least half an hour (prey was getting harder to come as winter approached). Holly put all her concentration into finding her prey; for her, minutes were like seconds as she stalked. For her, it felt like no time at all before she found the squirrel scurrying up the trunk of a willow tree. She licked her chops and fell into a crouch. Her instincts as a carnivore soon took over as she dug her claws into the bark and silently began to pull herself up towards the animal. Unaware of her presence, the squirrels whiskers twitched. It lay absolutely still, staring at something in the distance that Holly was unable to see.

She was only a fox-tail away from it now. Resisting the urge to shoot forward- and at the same time alert the squirrel- she waited until it was just within reach of her claws. And then she struck. Her teeth moved forward like a blur and expertly inflicted the killing bite. It was all over within a second.

Purring with satisfaction, Holly climbed down from the tree and, with the prey clamped securely in her mouth, began to follow her own paw steps back to camp. _Finally! Some fresh meat! _She thought. _I've been having to scavenge off carrion for the past couple of days now. _

Holly was so carried away by her catch that it took her a few minutes longer to detect the fresh cat scent that it would have normally. Instantly alert, she narrowed her eyes. Being a loner, finding another cat was rare. And even if you did come across another feline's scent, you usually avoided meeting them. There was always a chance that they would take prey. At this thought, she took her catch and padded swiftly back to her den without a second thought.

Besides, Holly preferred to walk alone.

The journey back took her back the way she had come- but for some reason she got the strange feeling that the scent of cat was just growing stronger. She frowned and stopped. Then it dawned on her. _You idiot! _She shook her head in disbelief. _The cat scent wasn't leading in the other direction. You're going right towards it!_

There was a rustle, and then from seemingly nowhere a cat appeared. It was tom with rich, white tabby fur and the most lustrous green eyes she had ever seen, along with a tinted brown muzzle. His muscles stood out beneath his flank; perhaps his most distinctive feature though were his whiskers. They were long and curved twirling around like the branches of a tree… along with several battle scars lining his pelt, it made the tom look both handsome and shrewd.

Instantly, Holly dropped her squirrel to the ground and stood over it protectively. 'You even think of moving from that spot, and I'll give you some wounds you won't forget.' She snarled.

The tom seemed to be taken by surprise by her sudden appearance, but he soon too felt int a classic defensive pose. 'You think?' He said, almost bemused.

_What? _Holly fury and hostility only rose. _He's both arrogant and stupid. No one starts a fight around these parts if they can help it- what if the wounds they received became infected. _'Do you seriously believe I wouldn't attack you?' Holly hissed. _  
_

He shook his head. 'Of course I don't but believe me, other cats have learnt through experience that you don't want to get into a tussle with a cat like me.'

Holly took this cat in once more, trying to figure out what the hell he was thinking. Whether he was just crazy or if he generally thought he could scare her off just by bragging about his fighting ability? 'And,' she said, finally, 'what kind of cat are you?'

He stared at her very hard, completely calm and collected. 'One that's been trained.'

That caught Holly off-guard. _One that's been trained? _She thought. _You don't just get trained to fight: sure your mother usually shows you the basics, but only the basics. Every cat usually just teaches themselves. _Suddenly and idea struck her. She had often heard whispers from other cats about a group of felines living in a mountain range beyond the human construction site that trained, hunted and fought together. 'Are you one of the tribe cats?' She asked._  
_

'One of the tribe cats?' He wondered aloud. 'No; close guess though.'

She sighed, and unsheathed her claws. 'Look, I don't care who you are or what you were in the past, all I care about is whether or not you're here to take my prey.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Oh for StarClan's sake: whenever I try to talk to anyone here all they think I'm going to do is take their prey!' He ranted. 'Honestly!

'Well, that's usually what everyone wants to do.' Holly replied, getting annoyed now.

'I'm not everyone.'

'If _everyone _of the cats where you come from are as arrogant as you meeting another one in this life time will be too soon.' Holly growled, not taking her eyes off the distance between her squirrel and the tom. _If this git wasn't so full of himself we would have gone our separate ways by now. __  
_

The tom eyed her nonchalantly for a few seconds... before bursting into laughter. Holly raised her head in disbelief. 'I like you,' the cat said, still caught in a fit of giggles. 'Lots of- spunk.' He stopped and became serious again. 'Would you give me the honour of knowing your name?'

'Why should I?' Holly demanded. This conversation was getting for too sociable for her liking. _He's just trying to distract you from the squirrel- nothing more._ She told herself. But for some reason… she couldn't help but like him.

'Well, my name is Sagewhisker.' The cat said willingly. He sat down on his haunches and began to delicate groom his long, curving whiskers. 'It's only fair now if you give your name in return.'

There were a few moments of tense silence. 'Sagewhisker?' She said, refusing to give out information like that so easily. 'What sort of ludicrous name is that? Your mother must have been crazy.'

He bristled slightly, but cooled himself in a manner of seconds. 'But where it came form, Sagewhisker was a respectable name, and in my opinion, it still is.' A slightly edge of sorrow and regret entered his voice now. 'It's probably a name that strikes fear into the heart of everyone who hears it back at the lake now.'

'What?' She echoed.

He looked up, and then it seemed to just dawn on him what he had said. 'Oh, um, no matter.' He said, embarrassed. Sagewhisker composed himself before beginning to speak again. 'So, what is your name?'

Realising that this tom- Sagewhisker- wasn't going to leave until she had given him her name, she gave in. 'I'm Holly.'

'Holly, hmm?' He muttered. 'You know, back at my-' he paused, 'previous home, that name would sound stupid as well.'

Holly stared at Sagewhisker incredulously. _Okay… now I'm sure he and his kind are crazy. What's wrong with my name?! It sounds a lot more plausible than Sagewhisker, which is just plain ridiculous._

_'_Look, Sagewhisker,' she said patronisingly. 'It's nearing Leaf-Bare, and the weather is getting more un-predictable by the day: so, I would appreciate it if you left me alone.' SHe picked up her squirrel and began to pad back to her den.

When she heard the sound of his paw steps following her, Holly realised that this cat may be harder to shake off than she had previously thought.


End file.
